Jony Ive is himself classic Apple. Brushed steel, polished glass hardware, complicated software honed to simplicity. His genius is not just his ability to see what others cannot but also how he applies it.

To watch him with his workmates in the holy of holies, Apple’s design lab, or on a night out is to observe a very rare esprit de corps. They love their boss, and he loves them. What the competitors don’t seem to understand is you cannot get people this smart to work this hard just for money.

Jony is Obi-Wan. His team are Jedi whose nobility depends on the pursuit of greatness over profit, believing the latter will always follow the former, stubbornly passing up near-term good opportunities to pursue great ones in the distance. Jony’s values happen to add value — emotional and financial. It takes a unique alchemy of form and function for millions of people to feel so passionately about the robot in their pocket.

Jonathan Ive has long been the face behind Apple's iconic industrial design, but more recently he was tapped by Apple CEO Tim Cook to take over iOS's user interface design. Sir Jonathan is known for his minimalist taste in design, and for bringing in a design aesthetic at Apple that reset multiple bars in the world of electronics.

Note, however, that Bono didn't focus on any of Jony Ive's work. Instead, he focused on what kind of person he is, how he leads people at Apple, his values. That makes for a much more compelling read than simply recapping his design accomplishments.

Newly minted Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer was named in the list of most influential Pioneers, along with other figures in politics, social awareness, and science.

Each of the writeups was handled by people who might also be considered influential rather than Time's own journalists. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for instance, wrote up Jay Z, while Google Chairman Eric Schmidt wrote up Marissa Mayer's piece. Note that she used to work for him at Google.